


all that's best of dark and bright

by akosmia



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Library, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Fluff, Libraries, Mutual Pining, Tattoos, librarian Ben, poetry as flirting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:01:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25428841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akosmia/pseuds/akosmia
Summary: “Oh,” she breathes out. “Nice tattoo.”At this, Ben looks down at his arm as if he were seeing it for the first time, then blushes.“Ah. Right. Thank you. They’re daffodils. They– they symbolize rebirth. Also, uh– my grandmother had a lake house, back in Naboo, and the garden was filled with daffodils. I used to lie in the grass for hours, just looking at them. It’s one of my fondest memories.” Then, his lips twitch in his crooked smile again, before he recites, “And then my heart with pleasure fills and dances with the daffodils.”She can’t help but smile, even as she lightly punches his arm. “Nerd.”“Yeah,” Ben convenes. Then, he catches her hand, intertwines their fingers and, softly, adds, “Your nerd.”-- or: the one where, over the course of the seasons, Rey falls in love with Ben, the unconventional librarian with a tattoo sleeve that blushes every time she helps him shelve books and that feels unexplicably like home.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 148
Kudos: 641
Collections: Galactic Idiots Collection





	all that's best of dark and bright

**Author's Note:**

> do i know anything about libraries, astrophysics and poetry? no!! has this ever stopped me before?? nope
> 
> this fic was inspired by [ this ](https://twitter.com/galacticidiots/status/1281320119206060035?s=20) prompt by Fran (galacticidiots on twitter) who's a menace when it comes to prompts and that's why I love her ♥ i won't even try to justify the wordcount, you all know me, there's no point to it. it is what it is *shrug*
> 
> also, in the end notes i linked all the poems i've quoted in this fic, because ben solo is a pretentious little shit and i love him so much for it.  
> 

**(i)** **  
** **winter**

She first notices the hint of a tattoo peeking just beneath the sleeve of Ben’s sweater when she’s helping him shelve the books at the end of a day. 

It’s a ritual, something sacred they share between them and that she would not give up for the world. She can’t remember how it began – maybe he asked for her help one day, or maybe she volunteered just to clear her head from her research but it doesn’t matter, because by now it’s a tradition of theirs.

She likes the ease of these moments – the two of them walking through the library, whispering softly, Ben laughing at something that she’s said. She’s never had a home and she doesn’t think she’s ever felt like she belongs anywhere, but the way his eyes crinkle when he laughs makes her heart skip a beat and she feels something in her chest that makes her want to _stay_.

As if she had finally found her place in a chaotic, maddening, ever-expanding universe. 

What a wonderful, terrifying thought. 

The library is quiet, immersed in a solemn silence. It’s an unusually beautiful day for this time of the year and setting sun filters through the ample windows even as she follows Ben through the maze of shelves she still can’t solve, casting everything in a pink light and plunging them in a different moment, as if this instant had been taken out of a fairytale or an old photograph. It’s easy to forget about everything else when it’s just the two of them, the endless rows of books and the soft glow of the sunset. 

“I still don’t understand how you can even stand winter,” she’s saying, scrunching up her nose as she hands him another book. She shivers a bit, because the library, while beautiful and basically the place where she spends most of her time, is also terribly drafty. “It’s so _cold_ here. I can’t wait for it to end. How are you not freezing?”

Ben lets out a soft chuckle. Bathed in the light of the sunset and surrounded by books, he looks like every dream she’s ever had, all gentle eyes and soft smiles and those dimples on his cheeks that only appear when he’s around her, because she’s the only one who manages to make him smile like _that_. Like he means it. Like he can’t help it, when it comes to her. 

He’s – well, he’s _intimidating_ , with his towering frame and broad shoulders and the scowl that often takes hold of his face. _You’ve got a resting bitch face_ , she’d told him one day. 

_A_ _what_ , had been his predictable response. 

She’s seen freshmen cower in fear when he’s the one checking out their books and though she can understand them, it still comes as a surprise to her, because he smiles so _easily_ when she’s around. 

This six-foot-three muscled giant, flashing her his goofy, dimpled grin every time she’s near. It makes her heart flutter in her chest – a fragile, hopeful thing that comes alive when he looks at her like that. 

“I’ve lived here in Chandrila for my whole life,” he tells her, the corner of his lips tugged upward. “It’s not so _bad_.”

She raises her eyebrows, as she hands him the books he’s supposed to be shelving. “Last night I was shivering so badly I had to put on two sweaters.”

They’re in the 800s section, Literature (he’s taught her that, even if she still has trouble remembering it all), and he looks perfectly at home here, as if he’d sprung fully formed from the shelves, a creature of books and words and poetry, of everything beautiful and romantic. How could she not fall for him, after all? It feels inevitable – as if caught in the gravitational pull of a star, Ben attracts her in his orbit and it’s only right she ends up falling for him, circling around him as a satellite. 

He’s still talking, even if she barely hears him over the yearning roar of her own heart. “You get used to it after a while. You’ve been here for a few years, right?”

She nods, absent-minded, then scrunches her nose. “Yeah, but I’ve lived in Jakku my whole life. We don’t get _winters_ there. Not like these, at least.”

His lips quirk up in one of his devastating smiles, all tenderness and dimples when he turns into her direction. “ _O Wind_ ,” he recites, his voice deep and low. " _If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?_ " 

She blinks him in, her heart fluttering in her chest again. This man. This ridiculous, impossible, _wonderful_ man, who blushes up to his hairline if she smiles at him and stammers over his words most of the time and yet recites poetry under his breath and renders her useless without even realizing it.

She wants to shake him and tell him to stop whatever he’s doing to her heart, because he’s leaving a permanent imprint she will never be able to get rid of. She wants to sink her hands into his hair and let him spill his poetry right against her lips. She wants to cradle his face into her palms and kiss him until she runs out of breath, and maybe even then.

But, of course, she can’t, because this silly crush on her favorite librarian isn’t going anywhere. He can do so much better than Rey Niima, a nobody from Jakku who’s just trying her best to complete her PhD and spends most of her free time in the library. He’s – God, he’s so _special_. He’s funny and charming and gentle. He likes poetry and really sugary coffee, he loves to read fairytales to the kids in the kids’ corner every Saturday, he runs his hand through his hair when he’s nervous and the way he smiles seems to light up the whole world and why should he ever settle for her, when he’s such a radiant creature?

So she punches him lightly on the arm and doesn’t miss the way her knuckles brush against solid muscle. Goodness gracious, the audacity of him, to _exist_ like _this_ in her general proximity. A faint blush comes to dust her cheeks and she looks away, pretending to be busy checking the books. 

“English major,” she mutters to herself as if it were an insult, scrunching up her nose again and shaking her head with mocking sadness. “I should have known. You’ve got that pretentious look about you.”

Another soft chuckle slips past his lips and he pokes her in the ribs, just to get back at her probably. They do this often – and it surprises her, because she’s never let anyone touch her before, but with Ben it feels almost _instinctive_. As if their souls had been tangled long ago, and they tried to reach for each other at any chance they get. She wonders if she’s imagining the way his fingers seem to linger a bit more than necessary, before falling away. 

“You take that back,” he says, but there’s a smile on his lips. “I’m not _pretentious_.”

“Said the man in a cashmere sweater who just recited Shelley in the middle of a conversation.”

He laughs again, and it reverberates around them as they make their way through the library. It’s as deep as his voice, a thundering sound that she’s learned to know by heart. 

“I’ll have you know, I decided to become an English major when I stumbled upon _This Be The Verse_ during my freshman year of high school,” he says, poking her again. “ _They fuck you up, your mum and dad,_ and all that _._ You know.” 

She raises her eyebrows. “This does nothing to prove that you’re not pretentious,” she tells him, still teasing. “It just proves you’re also _edgy_.”

God, the way he _laughs_. She thinks she could listen to this sound forever. 

“Fair point.” He shrugs, then cocks his head to the side as if to study her, his warm eyes lingering on her face. She wonders what he’s seeing. If he can read the way her palms sweat and her pulse quickens every time he looks at her like that. “So, what’s your favorite season, if you hate winter so much?”

“Probably spring,” she replies, with a shrug. Then, she feels her cheeks heat up under his gaze as she adds, “I like it when the flowers start to bloom. I like– I like the idea of life starting again, of things coming alive again. Before I came here I hadn’t known there was so much green in the world. So much _life_.”

There’s a moment of silence in which he just _looks_ at her and the only audible sound is the frantic beat of her own heart.

“Oh.” There’s a new expression on his face, one she’s never seen before. He looks – almost _mesmerized_ , as if she’d just said something incredible, and it makes her want to rise to her tiptoes and kiss him silly. A blush spreads on his face, covering the tips of his ears too, and he looks down at his feet, as if he’d just discovered he has them. “That’s sweet. I– I think it suits you.”

She doesn’t know if he meant it as a compliment, but she blushes anyway and averts her eyes before he can read all the thoughts swirling in her mind at the moment right off the lines of her face. 

“What’s _your_ favorite season?” she asks him, her fingers brushing against the spines of the books in front of her. She steals a glance into his direction, because no matter how hard she tries, he’s a tune perfectly designed to entrance her and captivate her.

He runs a hand through his hair, then gifts her one of his small, tender smiles that she likes to treasure. 

“Fall,” he whispers, as if he were telling her the deepest secret of his heart. “I like the colors and the melancholy of it. Things are dying, but they die beautifully. It’s poetic. _In the very temple of Delight, veil’d Melancholy has her sovran shrine_.”

A laugh escapes her lips before she even realizes it. “As I was saying, pretentious.”

He laughs again and puts a book back on the highest shelf. The sleeve of his sweater hitches up a bit in the process, granting her a peek of the pale skin of his wrist that she zeroes-in almost immediately and that makes her pulse quicken, her heart beating so loudly he can probably hear it in the eerie silence of the library. 

_How Victorian_ , she thinks, _losing my mind over an exposed wrist_ , and that’s when she sees it – the hint of a tattoo that seems to climb like a vine over his right arm, twisting in a pattern she can’t make out.

Oh.

_Oh, fuck._

It looks like a tattoo sleeve. It probably _is_ a tattoo sleeve. Good God, what if he’s got a tattoo sleeve? She doesn’t think she’s going to survive this – just the thought of it is enough to render her useless and send her into overdrive. Ben, her favorite librarian and the one she’s been pining after almost desperately, with a tattoo sleeve? The idea is a supernova, burning brightly in her mind, obliterating anything else in its wake. 

Her throat is suddenly very dry. 

“Come on,” he says, then, blissfully unaware of the places her mind has been in the span of a few seconds. “We’re almost done with this section. I swear to God, I never thought working in a library could mean so much work.”

It takes her a moment to come back to Earth, because all she seems to be able to think about is Ben and the tattoo twisting underneath the sleeve of his sweater. She’s never seen him in anything but long-sleeved shirts and now she can’t wait for summer to come around. He probably wears t-shirts, which, coming to think about it, means a lot of skin on display. How the hell is she going to act like it doesn’t affect her at all, when the sight of his wrist is enough to turn her brain into mush? 

She suddenly understands why they were so hung up about exposed ankles back in the days. Just thinking about his forearms feels _sinful_. 

“Rey?” Ben waves a hand in front of her eyes, as if to call her back to this world. She jolts, her cheeks flaming red, her breath short on her lips and her heart beating wildly against her chest. “Are you okay? You look– _flushed_. Are you coming down with a fever? Do you want me to drive you home?”

_Yes, I want you to drive me home and stay with me forever and maybe lose the sweater._

She clears her throat. “No, don’t worry,” she manages to say, even if she doesn’t know how, because she doesn’t think she remembers how words work at the moment. “I– I’m just tired. I had classes this morning and then I came straight here to work on my research.”

His lips twist in a sympathetic grimace. “You shouldn’t be helping me, you must be exhausted–” 

It’s almost automatic to roll her eyes and tug at his sleeve. She only spends three seconds thinking about the tattoo ( _and_ _the arm_ , her mind supplies. _Muscled, toned arm, so solid and real underneath her fingers_ ) he’s hiding underneath and she’s vaguely proud of that. 

“Come on, the sooner we finish this, the sooner we can go home.”

Ben studies her for a moment, as if he could read the answers to all his questions right on the lines of her face – and maybe he can, because she feels awfully transparent when he’s around, as if he’d learned to _know_ her. 

Then, he sighs. “Alright,” he concedes, then pokes her in the ribs again, just for good measure probably. “But I owe you coffee after this.”

She tries her best not to get her hopes up at that, but she mostly fails.

**(ii)** **  
** **spring**

She’s jolted awake by a gentle hand on her shoulder.

It takes her a moment to remember where she is. The world comes in blurred spots, the sounds muffled by her own drowsiness. Her body feels heavy and numb, as if she’d spent the last hundred years in a deep slumber. She blinks her surrounding in once, then twice, then a third time too, and the awareness of it only comes a few minutes later when she realizes the tables and the shelves around her look awfully familiar and then–

– she jumps. 

“Shit,” she breathes out, straightening her back. A sheet of paper has stuck to her cheek as she was sleeping and she has to pry it away from her skin, wincing a bit at the sound. She wonders if she’s got ink on her face and how much of a sorry scene she must make at the moment. “Shit, shit, _shit_.”

She runs her hand through her hair, fighting off the urge to scream. The research. She was supposed to work on her _research_. That was the whole _point_ of coming to the library.

There’s a chuckle somewhere above her, deep and warm and so familiar it tugs at her heartstrings before she’s even aware of what’s happening, as if her heart knew that sound better than her own mind. 

“That’s exactly how I feel every time I wake up,” the deep voice says, a hint of humor in it.

When she raises her eyes, Ben is here. 

He’s – well, he’s Ben. 

There’s nothing different or peculiar about his appearance – he’s the same Ben she’s always been a little bit smitten by ever since she first met him months ago, as he sat behind the main desk of the library. There’s a tentative smile on his lips, the dimples she knows so well on his cheeks, a smattering of moles on his face. He looks like he usually does – like he’s trying his best to fight the urge to shrink into his shoulders, as if he could pass undetected like that. 

It’s a sight she’s been granted many times before, and yet she feels as if he’d suddenly sucked all the air out of her lungs and she can’t do anything but stare at him in breathless wonder. 

The light coming from the windows bathes him in a golden haze and a strand of hair falls on his forehead as he looks down at her and maybe she’s still a little bit dazed or she’s still dreaming or maybe her crush on him has slipped past her control a long time ago, but she’s got to stop herself from grabbing the lapels of his stupid leather jacket she’s spent the last few days thinking about and tug him down in a bruising kiss. 

Instead, she gulps, runs a hand through her hair again and settles for, “What– what happened?”

She tries her best not to cringe at how groggy her voice sounds. 

Ben lets go of her shoulder – she notices only in this moment he was still holding it, a lingering warmth where his hand had rested up until a second ago – and gingerly sits on the chair beside her, eyeing the chaotic array of notes and books in front of him. 

“You fell asleep,” he says, in the end, bringing his eyes back on her.

The sun hits them just right, making them look like molten amber, and she feels a little bit silly thinking about it, but she wants to lose herself in them. She doesn’t know all those pretty words he seems to be so fond of and doesn’t know how to translate these feelings in poetry, but she thinks she might be in love with him and the thought is enough to make her heart race. 

She has to clear her throat before talking and she feels as if she’d swallowed her own heart. 

“I fell asleep?” she asks, as if the words meant nothing to her. 

He nods, never losing his kind smile. “Yeah. I came to check on you and I found you like this.” 

She knows she’s blushing by the way her cheeks feel on fire at the moment. Fuck. She fell _asleep_. In the _library_. Right under Ben’s gaze. She doesn’t have the courage to ask herself if she drooled in her sleep because she’s not sure she wants to hear the answer, especially not from _him_. Here he is, the man she can’t stop thinking about, all broad shoulders and hesitant smiles and warm eyes, and she _fell asleep_ in front of him. 

She feels like the biggest idiot who ever walked the Earth and she can’t look him in the eyes anymore because she’s just that _pathetic_. He probably thinks she’s a mess, and, coming to think about it, he’d be right. 

“Fuck,” she breathes out, because that’s all she feels capable of at the moment. She takes her face into her hands and groans, trying her best to blink back the tears of frustration welling in her eyes. “Fuck, I’m an idiot, fuck, fuck, I should just quit, I’m so fucking stupid–”

She’s interrupted by a warm hand coming to rest on her arm, gently, as if not to spook her away. As if he didn’t know if he were allowed to touch her and was granting her the possibility of pushing him away. 

As if she ever _would_. 

As if she didn’t feel like a star on a collision course, inevitably set to crash into his blinding brightness every time he’s near. 

When she doesn’t pull away, but, instead, leans into his touch, Ben curves his fingers around her arm. Despite how big and broad he is, he’s got such _delicate_ hands, all long fingers and hesitant touches, and his palm brushes against her arm with the same care he’d use if she were an ancient, rare tome. Even above the layer of clothes, she can feel the way his touch affects her, making her shiver.

It’s almost automatic, to lower her hands and look at him in surprise. 

“Hey,” he whispers, his voice so deep and low she instinctively leans closer as if to hear him better. “Hey, you’re not an idiot. It happens. I’ve worked here for barely a few months and I’ve seen people fall asleep at least two times a day, especially during finals week. Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

She wants to rest her hand on top of his, intertwine their fingers, feel the reassuring warmth of his touch, the ease of his presence enveloping her. As absurd as it sounds, she wants to be _comforted_ by him.

It’s crazy. She’s never let anyone comfort her before. She doesn’t even know if she knows how to. She never _learned_ to. But there’s something in Ben that makes her want to _try_. 

Instead, she shakes her head, weakly, a grimace on her lips. 

“I’m so stupid,” she manages to say, her voice stuck somewhere in her throat. “I was supposed to work on my research. For– for my PhD. I’ve stayed up all week for this, between classes and my tutoring job, and God– I already feel so stupid most of the times and I can’t keep up with everything and– what I was thinking, doing my PhD in _astrophysics_ , I–”

He lets go of her arm only to hold both of her hands, lacing their fingers together so easily, as if they’d done this in some past life. As if the atoms in their bodies came from the death of the same distant star and they were just trying to find their way back home.

The thought burrows into her brain and doesn’t leave. _Home_ , she realizes, _when she’s with Ben, she’s home._

“Rey,” he whispers, solemnly. All the words die on her lips and she can’t remember anything else but the sound of her name uttered by his voice, the way he looks at her as if the universe started and ended in the freckles on the bridge of her nose, the way the heat of his palms seems to seep into her bones and rewrite her. “It’s alright. I’ve got you.”

 _Funny_ , she wants to say, _I don’t think anyone has ever got me_. 

But he does. He does, because he’s here and he’s breathing deeply, in and out, guiding her. As if he were a luminous thread, burning through the night, leading her home. A guiding star, lightening her the way. 

She barely realizes she’s breathing in sync with him, but she must be, because he looks relieved ( _because he was worried about her_ , it’s her stunned realization) and her heartbeat starts to revert to normal – that is to say, fluttering rapidly against her ribcage as it always does when Ben is involved.

“Good.” His lips curve into a tentative smile and she feels so _safe_ in this moment, his fingers laced with hers, his body so close to hers. She doesn’t think she’s ever felt safe, not like this. Not in someone else’s presence. But Ben, she thinks, is special. “It’s alright. You’re not stupid. You’re– fuck, Rey, you’re _wonderful_.”

Surprising as it may sound – given also his intimidating appearance and the fact that he looks like the kind of librarian who will personally track you down and kill you over overdue books –, it’s the first time she hears him curse, and it shocks her, to realize that’s because of her. Because he’s _praising_ her, of all things. 

There’s a brief pause in which she just gapes at him, not knowing what to say. She’s been on her own for most of her life and she’s never learned how to functionally interact with other human beings, let alone graciously accept compliments –mostly because she never had someone to compliment her in the first place –, so she does the only thing she knows how to do.

She dismisses it. 

“Don’t be absurd,” she tells him. His hands are still resting on top of hers and despite it all, she doesn’t want to let him go. “I’m just… _myself_.”

His smile gets softer somehow, if possible. She can glimpse the hint of a dimple on his cheek and she dies to brush her fingers against it, just to know how it feels underneath her fingertips. 

“That’s the point,” he murmurs, leaning in. His thumb strokes the back of her hand, tracing lazy circles, and she feels her body leaning into his warmth, as if she wanted nothing more than to sink in his embrace. “You’re wonderful because you’re _you_. I’ve never met anyone like you in my entire life.”

She doesn’t think she’s ever been _wonderful_ , but Ben looks at her like that, his eyes so fiery and intense, and it must be true somehow, even if she can’t believe it.

Still, it’s easier to scoff. Her gaze falls back on the obscene quantities of notes she has scattered around the table, her laptop precariously balanced over her books. 

“In case you haven’t noticed, I fell asleep in the library.”

He squeezes her hands, forcing her attention back on him. He’s so – _caring_. Is this what it feels to be comforted, reassured, cared for? She wouldn’t know. But the thing is – she _dies_ to, when it comes to Ben.

“Because you are overworking yourself,” he reminds her, softly.

“Believe me, I am not–” 

He lets go of one of her hands to brush a lock of hair away from her face, his thumb lingering against her forehead for a minute, stroking her skin, and just like that, all the words die on her lips again. He looks like he’s studying her freckles, as if they held all the answers in the world, as if they were his favorite piece of poetry and he was trying his best to divine its meaning. Rey can’t do anything but gulp, her breaths coming in short pants, her heartbeat fluttering crazily in her chest. 

“Sweetheart,” he adds, then, making her heart skip a beat at the endearment. She’d never thought a word could make her feel so warm and happy and cherished and she wants him to call her _sweetheart_ with his deep voice for the rest of her life. “You need to rest. How can you expect to write your thesis if you’re not sleeping?”

She knows he’s _right_ , and yet it’s the first time somebody worries about her and she doesn’t know what to say. It feels so _new_ that the words inevitably falter on her lips and she’s left staring at him without knowing how to convey all that she’s feeling right now.

“I–”

“Listen,” he starts before she can protest further. His thumb is still stroking the back of her hand, so gently she feels almost like an ancient book herself. “My shift ends in ten minutes. What if we get out of here and I buy you a coffee and something to eat?”

It’s hard to say anything, when he’s looking at her like that – like she holds the sky in the palm of her hand, a wonder he’s mesmerized by. She swallows, her heart in her throat and her hands trembling in his grasp. She wonders if he’s noticed.

She wonders if he minds so terribly. 

“Alright,” she manages to say, softly. 

The grin that breaks out on his face is breathtaking – crooked and dimpled and boyish and utterly _devastating_. She thinks she’ll never recover from it. 

She could lean in and kiss it. Kiss _him_. She really _could_ and the thought is _intoxicating_. It would be so easy – all she’d have to do is to surge forward and then she’d be kissing him, her lips on his, her hands lost in his hair, their breaths mingled together. She wonders if he’d cradle her face with the same reverence he reserves for his books, if he’d kiss her with the same passion he reads poetry with. She wonders if he’d love her as much as he loves his favorite poem.

Instead, she smiles at him and lets him go. 

True to his words, he comes back ten minutes later. The sun is getting warmer even here in the library and he’s shed his leather jacket, opting for holding it in the crook of his arm, and as he helps per pack all of her stuff her eyes finally fall on what she’s been glimpsing every now and then in the past few months. 

Her lips part at the sight and for a moment she forgets how to talk or breathe or just _exist_. It _is_ a tattoo sleeve. It’s a flowery pattern that starts around his wrist, where fine vines twist around his bones and then climb up his arm, turning into blooming flowers as they do and disappearing underneath the sleeve of his t-shirt. She wonders how much further it goes, and how it would feel to press her fingers against the pattern. 

“Oh,” she breathes out.

He raises his eyebrows at her, clearly confused. 

She’s emanating enough heat to keep the library warm for all winter, but she tries to recover all the same. She points at his arm, shrugging as if he hadn’t just melted her brain and rendered unable to function. 

“Nice tattoo.”

At this, Ben looks down at his arm as if he were seeing it for the first time, then blushes. 

“Ah. Right. Thank you. They’re daffodils,” he explains, nodding in the direction of the flowers climbing on his skin. A faint pink hue dusts his cheeks, when he adds, "They– they symbolize rebirth. Also, uh– my grandmother had a lake house, back in Naboo, and the garden was filled with daffodils. I used to lie in the grass for hours, just looking at them. It’s one of my fondest memories.” Then, his lips twitch in his crooked smile again, before he recites, “ _And then my heart with pleasure fills and dances with the daffodils._ ”

She can’t help but smile, even as she lightly punches his arm. “Nerd.”

“Yeah,” Ben convenes. Then, he catches her hand, intertwines their fingers and, softly, adds, “Your nerd.” 

It shouldn’t make her so happy, should it?

**(iii)** **  
** **summer**

The bougainvillea flowers climbing on the façade of the library are in full bloom, shining almost violet under the sun when she arrives. Surprisingly, she finds Ben right outside the library, crouched on the marble steps that lead to the front door and curled on something she can’t quite see from this distance.

He’s a dark spot in the colorful summer day, with his black clothes she’s often teased him for, but what catches her eyes is the small, awestruck smile on his lips that is so devastatingly _sweet._ Her heart stops in her chest for a full second, before starting to beat faster as if to make up for that moment of stillness.

It doesn’t surprise her, the effect it has on her. These days, it’s getting harder to fight off the yearning creature roaring in her chest when he’s around and she can’t help but _ache_. She’s never wanted anything as much as she wants to kiss that smile. Wants to brush her fingers against it. Wants him to press that same smile against her heart as he kisses a path down her chest. 

“Hey,” she says, as she steps closer. The sun is high in the sky and she has to blink a few times just to get used to it, which is good, because it gives her the time to collect herself. “What are you doing out here? Just basking in the sun? I honestly thought you were too much of a vampire for it.”

Ben raises his eyes as soon as he notices her and the smile on his lips gets bigger, but also impossibly _softer_. 

Despite the fact that he spends most of his days inside, the summer sun has got to him, too – his face is endearingly flushed, a healthy glow about him that makes him look more _alive_ , and not an extremely pale ghost who somehow got trapped in the library. There are a million little freckles she’d never noticed before scattered all over his skin, along with the moles she’s familiar with. He looks like a universe she wants to lose herself into. She wonders how many constellations she’d be able to draw from memory on his skin.

“Hey,” he replies. He sounds so genuinely _happy_ to see her, as if she had changed his whole day with her sudden appearance. She doesn’t know how to tell him to stop this, to stop making her heart lurch in her chest like this, because it isn’t _fair,_ the way he makes her _believe_ for a moment. "You’re right, normally I wouldn’t be caught dead outside during the summer, but– I found him in the back.”

His words elicit a frown out of her, not sure she understands him. For a moment, she wonders if he’s delirious from the heat, but then she follow his gaze and there, between his arms – muscled, beautiful arms, her mind supplies, with a tattoo sleeve she’s been _dying_ to trace with her fingers for months now – is lying what looks like–

“Oh,” she says, surprised. She blinks again, as if to make sense of the scene in front of her. “A kitten.” 

There he is – a small, black kitten, nestled in the crook of Ben’s elbow as if there were no better place in the world. Despite the heat, he’s all curled up against Ben and looks like a spot of darkness against his pale complexion, resting on his tattooed arm as if he were happily lying on a bed of flowers. He’s got striking golden eyes and he’s so small it tugs at something in her heart and before she realizes, she’s crouching on the ground next to Ben, reaching out with her hand. 

Her eyes find his, a question clearly written all over her face, because he nods softly, and then she leans in to pet the kitten’s little head, eliciting a contented sort of noise out of him. He closes his eyes and sinks even further in Ben’s embrace and it must be ridiculous – Ben, all but curled on the ground, big and broad as he is, and holding into his arms the smallest kitten she’s ever seen. 

Instead, she feels on the verge of _tears_. This man. This sweet, impossible man, who always manages to find new ways to break her heart with the softest touch. 

“He’s so cute,” she murmurs, as the back of her fingers comes to stroke his head. She tries to swallow back the lump in her throat, staring down at the kitten. “How did you find him?”

When she raises her eyes, Ben is looking down at both of them – Rey and the kitten – with the tenderest smile she’s seen on his lips.

She likes to think she’s become some sort of expert on Ben Solo’s smiles – she’s spent these months learning them all, cataloguing them, committing them to her memory as if they were a stellar phenomenon she wanted to study. The barely-there smile that often comes up when he’s trying to tease her. The soft curve of his lips that he flashes her when he gets a glimpse of her from across the library. The crooked grin that bursts on his face when he’s genuinely _happy_. 

But this – this is different. This is radiant and sweet and it makes her want to drop to the ground and kiss him and kiss him and kiss him, until the sun expands and obliterates them both.

She swallows again, hoping he’ll think nothing of the flush rising in her cheeks. 

“I heard him meowing in the back,” he explains. “I think he was hungry. I gave him a bit of my lunch and he started to follow me and– I couldn’t leave him there. Look at how _small_ he is. Someone has to take care of him.”

His words make her heart _ache_. The thought takes hold of her mind before she can stop it, and there it is, her love-starved heart making a mess of her all over again. She sees herself like this, enveloped in the safety of his embrace, her head resting against his chest, his arms wrapped tightly around her. She’d feel at _home_ , she thinks, and _home_ would be a word that meant _something,_ not just another entry in the dictionary anymore. She’d be _happy_. Just like this kitten, basking in the warmth of Ben’s body, feeling like she can finally let go of all her fears and let someone else take care of her for once. 

She clears her throat, trying her best to abate the longing that always rushes through her when it comes to Ben. She’s not a kitten – she doesn’t need Ben to take care of her or protect her or anything like that.

But oh, she _wants_ it.

“He seems to be fond of you,” she tells him, gently.

The sun paints him in a golden halo as he shakes his head and lets out a little chuckle, breathless and awestruck, as if the thought had never crossed his brain before. “I think he just likes the fact that I fed him.” 

As if in response to Ben’s words, the kitten snuggles up to him, hiding his face in the crook of his elbow as if he’d found the safest spot in the world. Ben smiles again, so tenderly it makes her heart _jolt_ , and his free hand comes to stroke the fur of his little head and the kitten–

He _purrs_. 

“Oh,” Ben lets out. 

For such a small thing, it emits a lot of noise. It sounds like a particularly loud coffee machine and Rey can’t help the smile that spreads on her lips, can’t help the flutter of her heart when she notices Ben’s eyes are flickering between her and the kitten and there’s such a genuine surprise in the back of his gaze. 

“He’s purring,” he announces, as if he couldn’t quite believe this turn of events. 

She can’t do anything but giggle at his surprised expression. “Yeah, he is,” she convenes, poking his arm. “I think he likes you." 

Her words seem to come to him as some sort of revelation, because he raises his eyes and _looks_ at her and maybe it’s the sun, shining mercilessly on them, but she thinks she glimpses _tears_ in his eyes. 

It feels instinctive to bring her hand on his arm in a soothing gesture, her fingers brushing against the lines of his tattoo, tracing them with a feather-like touch. 

“What is it?”

He just looks at her for a moment, all soulful eyes and parted lips, and she’s never wanted to kiss anyone so badly as she wants to kiss him now, as he stares at her with what looks like _awe_ in his eyes, as if he were witnessing the birth of a star. 

Then, he shakes his head, softly. “I don’t–” He takes a deep breath, then presses his lips together and works his jaw as he often does, she’s learned, when he doesn’t know which words to use. It takes her by surprise, how endeared she is by this man who spends his time reading poetry, and yet doesn’t know how to convey what he’s feeling half of the time. “I don’t think I’ve ever been liked before.”

The kitten is still purring softly every time Ben delicately brushes his fingers against his little head, but Rey can’t do anything but _look_ at Ben. Her heart constricts, so suddenly it’s almost painful, and she dies to let him know how liked, no, how _loved_ he is.

“That’s a lie,” she says, in the end. Her fingers follow every twist of his tattoo, from the fine vines on his wrist to the daffodils in bloom on his forearm and despite the heat, Ben shivers underneath her touch, as if she were doing some kind of magic. “I like you.”

He turns so fast into her direction his hair falls a bit on his eyes, making him look younger like this. It’s like she’s been granted a peek in the past – she can imagine him, big and broad, hiding behind his books during his college years, a mess of eagerness and softness and intensity that’s entirely Ben. It fills her chest with some sort of painful tenderness, the idea of Ben feeling like he’s never been loved before. 

It feels instinctive to lean in and brush the hair out of his forehead, her palm lingering against his cheek for a minute before letting him go.

His warm eyes are full of surprise, as if he couldn’t believe her and yet he _died_ to. “You do?”

She lets out a soft chuckle at his marveled expression. “Of course I do,” she replies, as if it were obvious. And really, it should be – she’s been clearly smitten ever since she first saw him, and how could he ever doubt it? But maybe he needs to hear it – and maybe she needs to tell him. “I like you an awful lot, Ben.”

He gulps. There’s a faint blush on his cheeks that she thinks has nothing to do with the heat and she wants – she doesn’t know. She wants _everything_. 

She wants _him._ His smiles and his pouts and the way he works his mouth whenever he’s in deep thought. She wants the wrinkle between his eyebrows that always appears when he’s confused and the dimples in his cheeks that she always anticipates with a twist of her heart. She wants to be poked by him every time she tries to tease him and she wants him to clasp her hand with the delicate touch he’d reserve for something precious. 

She wants him, in all his contradictions and beauty.

“Oh,” he says, again. He’s so – so flushed and adorable and incredible and Rey’s heart fills with warmth and love at the sight. “I like you an awful lot too.”

It hadn’t occurred to her that he could _like_ her.

Before she has any chance to say anything, the kitten purrs again and they both bring their eyes on him, as peacefully nestled as he is in the crook of Ben’s arm. They stay in silence for a while, maybe trying to understand what has passed between them in the span of a few minutes. Rey feels – almost _raw_ , defenseless. As if he’d seen her as she really is, without the walls she usually puts up between her and everyone else.

She wonders if he likes her all the same. 

“Listen, I know you’re busy–” Ben starts, slightly raising his eyes to look at her. There’s still a trace of that blush on his cheeks and his gaze is so unbearably soft when it meets hers. “But I was wondering if you would come with me to the vet? I want to make sure he’s okay, before I take him home. I have the kids’ reading program in the afternoon, so I should go now.”

She blinks once, then twice, alternating between staring at Ben and at the kitten. “You want to take him home?” 

The blush on his cheeks deepens. “Well,” he says, trying his best to shrink into his shoulders. “I can’t let him go, can I?”

Later that morning, as they leave the vet clinic, Ben finds himself with an armful of what turns out to be a very healthy kitten who’s content to snuggle up to him as if there were no other places in the world. 

“You’ve thought of a name?” she asks him, as he leads them back to his car.

He pretends to think about it. “I think Mephistopheles fits him just right. He is a little devil, isn’t he?” He strokes the kitten’s head again, eliciting another purr, then brings his eyes back on her. “Listen, I– it’s probably inappropriate, but I live nearby. Can I offer you a cup of coffee or something?”

Her heart is a fluttering thing in her chest at the thought of Ben inviting her to his apartment, as if he’d just told her he finds her _worthy_. 

“Alright,” she replies, then scrunches her nose. “You really are addicted to coffee, you know that?”

Mephistopheles starts to snore softly in Ben’s arm, as he replies. “Well, what can I say,” he starts, with a soft shrug. “ _I have measured out my life with coffee spoons_.”

“Oh, _shut up_.”

**(iv)** **  
** **fall**

Ben has the sleeves of his plaid shirt rolled up to his elbows as they pass from aisle to aisle shelving books and Rey can’t focus on anything else. 

It’s getting a little bit _ridiculous_ , to be honest. She shouldn’t be so hung up on his forearms – as Rose likes to point out, Rey has spent the whole summer ogling at his (very toned, very nice) arms instead of working on her research every time she stepped into the library and she can’t possibly be this _flustered_ at the sight of his skin now. 

And yet, here she is. Blushing and stuttering over her words because she’s been granted an obstructed view of his remarkable forearms, in all their pale, freckled, tattooed glory. 

She’s trying her best not to think about how those arms would feel, wrapped around her body, but she’s mostly failing, because look at them. Just _look at them_. There must be a law that prevents him from distracting her like this. It can’t possibly be _right_. 

“So,” he’s saying, as they walk through the 400s section, Languages. It’s getting easier, remembering it all, especially when Ben smiles at her like _that_ when she gets it right. As if she’d just paid him the biggest compliment and he were absolutely ecstatic about it. “How is your research going?”

 _Surprisingly well, considering I’ve spent more time staring at you than working on it,_ she almost says.

A blush comes to dust her cheeks, but she pretends not to notice. “Fine, actually,” she replies, clearing her throat and willing her thoughts to behave, for once. “I think I’m almost done.”

Ben smiles falters. “Oh,” he says. "Wow, that’s– that’s great." 

Something flashes on his face – an expression that she can’t quite decode and that’s gone too soon for her to grasp it. He quickly averts his eyes, grabbing a few books from the cart and returning them to their place, and she’s left to stare at his muscled back as he leans against the shelves, feeling her stomach churn in a way that she isn’t sure if it’s pleasant or not.

“What is it?” she asks him, stepping closer. 

He still isn’t looking at her, but there’s a faint blush on his cheeks, heightening his moles. “Nothing. I’m happy for you,” he says. He doesn’t exactly sound _sad_ , but there’s something bubbling underneath the flat tone of his voice. Disappointment, maybe? She can’t really tell, but it’s clear that he’s trying his best to fight it off. Then, he seems to lose that fight, because he shakes his head and lets out a shuddering breath. “I just– I mean– now that you won’t have to come here all the time, my days will be very dull. Without you, that is.”

There’s a beat of silence in which she tries to make sense of his words. She opens her mouth, then closes it, then opens it again, but no sound comes out of it except for a sharp exhale. She can’t remember how to talk – she’s never been good with words, but now her mind is completely blank and she can’t think of anything to say, except for, _I think I’m in love with you._

Ben reads into her silence and promptly panics. 

“I mean–” he adds, hastily, running a nervous hand through his hair, which does nothing to help her poor, overwhelmed brain. He’s all flustered, his pale complexion almost crimson as adds, “Who will complain about the cold all the time? I was getting kind of used to it.”

Words. She must remember some words. At least _one_. Something that isn’t a low, pathetic wheeze. She rattles her brain in the hope of finding something to say, but to her mortification, all that comes out of her mouth is a breathless, “Oh.”

Ben seems to be just as at loss for words as she is, which is uncharacteristic of him, considering he spends most of their time together quoting poetry from memory. 

“Uh, yeah,” he says, unhelpfully, flushed red.

She blinks once, then twice. He’s standing right in front of her – beautiful and bashful and so incredibly _perfect_ and _dear_ and _wonderful_ , and her heart is a fluttering, eager creature in her chest that can’t dare to hope, but also can’t stop the longing that always comes around when it comes to Ben.

“Are you–” she starts, then clears her throat because the words are stuck somewhere in her throat. “Are you trying to say that you will _miss_ me?”

He does the thing he always does when he’s trying his best to disappear – he shrinks into his shoulders, burying his hands in the pocket of his jeans and it floods her chest with infinite tenderness for this quiet, soft-spoken man who can recite the most beautiful words but just gapes at her when it comes to use his own.

“Maybe,” he says, softly. He raises his eyes to meet hers, the ghost of a tender smile on his lips. He’s all tentativeness and bashfulness, when he adds, “Would it be okay if I were?”

He says it as if he were confessing a crime, and not rewriting her whole existence. There’s someone in this world who would _miss_ her. She’s someone worth _missing_ , for the first time in her life.

It comes as a shock to her. All she can do is nod. 

“Yeah. It would be very much okay,” she tells him and – oh, it’s _breathtaking_ , the way his face morphs into something different. The fear fades out, replaced by a giddy happiness that makes her heart twist in her chest, and she thinks, _I made him this happy_. It’s an intoxicating power, one that makes her bold and makes her add, “And I would say I will miss you too.”

The blush deepens on his cheeks and she’s pretty sure she’s red enough to be used as a traffic light herself, and yet it’s the most beautiful moment of her life. They look at each other as the light of the sunset shines over them, enveloping them in a soft embrace, and Rey thinks she’s never been happier. 

He’s resting against the bookshelves behind his shoulders, and it almost feels as if it were a normal extension of his own body, as if he could disappear between the shelves as suddenly as he had appeared in her life, a solar flare that had come into her existence on a blaze of fiery beauty.

“Rey?” he calls her, softly, even if he doesn’t have to, since she can’t take her eyes off him. He looks down at his hands, then back at her, his eyes looking like flames as the light of the sunset hits them. He takes a deep breath, before whispering, “Would it also be okay if I– if I asked you out for coffee or, I don’t know, something?”

It comes to her in small details. The golden light shining on the right side of his face. The amber hue of his eyes. The sheepish, bashful smile on his lips. The way he twists his hands. She can even hear the rapid beat of his heart, in the church-like silence of the library.

“Like,” she starts, not sure if she’s following him. “On a date?”

Ben exhales, the corner of his lips tugged upwards in his teasing smile, even if there’s a soft quality about it now. 

“Yeah, Rey,” he says, his voice faint and low and deep. There’s so much – _tenderness_. In his voice. On the lines of his face. In the back of his eyes. She’s surprised to realize how badly she wants this. The tenderness. Ben. Everything. “Yeah. On a date.”

There he is again, rendering her speechless with his words. It feels like a dream, and yet she knows it’s real by the way he looks at her, expectantly and terrified at the same time, his lips curved in a small, hopeful smile that makes her heart ache so beautifully. When she steps closer, crowding him against the bookshelf, Rey feels as if her heart had grown too big for her own chest.

Her lips are curved in a smile so big it hurts her cheeks a little, and yet she can’t find it in herself to mind.

“Yes.”

Ben stares at her as if she’d ripped the ground underneath his feet. He just blinks at her for the longest second of her life. “Yes?” 

A breathless little laugh escapes her lips and she tilts her head to the side, as if to study him. 

“Ben,” she breathes out, his name laced with fondness and affection and even a little bit of exasperation. “You can’t possibly be surprised.” 

His face is flushed red, heightening the moles she’s so fond of. “I beg to differ.” 

It’s so easy to reach out – her hand finds its way to his wrist almost out of its own accord, her fingers following the path of his tattoo until she clasps her hand around his own. He inhales, drawing in a stunned breath, but his fingers fit perfectly around her own and the way he melts into her touch makes her heart _sing_. 

“You do realize,” she starts, a somewhat teasing tone to her voice as she strokes the back of his hand. “I’ve been pining after you for the better part of this year, right?”

He blinks at her again, as if her words didn’t make sense to him, and yet his lips slowly curve into a breathtaking smile that floods her chest with warmth. 

“Uh, no, I’m pretty sure you have it backwards,” he replies, his gaze falling on their hands. Then, before she has a chance to say anything, he looks at her again and adds, so softly, his eyes full of reverence as if he were looking at something incredible and awe-worthy, “Rey, I’ve been awestruck by you ever since you first walked into the library. The first time you smiled at me, I– I was done for. You were so– so _luminous_. How could I not fall for you?"

The world fades away to nothing as she looks at him – his tender smile, the hopeful glint in the back of his eyes, the way he stares at her as if he’d found a place to call home. It feels as if the universe had conspired to bring her here, in a sunny library on this October afternoon. 

She feels her heart in her throat when she tries to talk. “You _fell_ for me?”

When he steps closer, the warmth of his body seeps into her bones, enveloping her. She can feel the soft exhale right against her forehead and the frantic beat of a heart between their bodies. She wonders, faintly, if it’s hers or his, but she doesn’t think it matters 

“Of course I did. Why do you think I asked you to help me shelve the books? I wanted to spend more time with you. I wanted to _know_ you.” He brings their joined hands on his chest, right to the place where his heart is beating erratically against his ribcage. “I’ve been in love with you ever since you first looked my way. _This is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart. I carry your heart. I carry it in my heart._ ”

She blinks at him once, then twice. She stares at his familiar, beautiful face – alive with happiness and love, a little bashful smile on the full lips she’s dreamed of kissing for months. 

"Oh, for God’s sake," she breathes out, before grabbing a fistful of his shirt and tugging him down in a kiss.

A thing she’s learned about the universe – sometimes binary stars, orbiting around each other in a cosmic dance, do align. They merge and explode catastrophically, producing an explosion so bright it can be seen from light years away, scattering stardust all around.

That’s what it feels like to kiss Ben. 

Her heart is in a collision course, crashing into his at full speed, leaving only light and love behind. He’s sweet and tender as always – he cradles her face into his hands as if he were touching something precious, shivers in the kiss when she deepens it, lets out a soft, surprised gasp when she presses him against the shelves at his back.

The dying light of the sun filters through the windows, bathing them in a golden hue, two figures kissing between the shelves of a library that feels like home. It’s something that wouldn’t look out of place in the stories he likes so much, a thing of poetry and desperate feelings, and she feels herself giggle against his lips. 

He pulls away, confused but also so radiantly happy. “What?”

She shakes her head. “Nothing,” she says, as she surges to her tiptoes to press a chaste kiss to his lips. They’re both smiling so wildly that kissing is a bit difficult, and yet she wouldn’t trade this moment for the world. “Just so you know,” she adds, a whisper away from his lips. “I fell in love with you the first time you smiled at me. I just don’t have all those pretty words to say it.”

He cups her face into his palms, looking at her with devotion sparkling in the back of his eyes. It steals the air from her lungs, the way he looks at her.

“I think," he starts, his thumb stroking her cheekbone. She’s got a feeling that he’s trying to connect all the freckles on her skin. “You said it perfectly.”

And then, he bends down and kisses her again, and the words fade from her mind as he wraps his arms around her.

She was right. His arms feel like home. 

**Author's Note:**

> ["All that's best of dark and bright."](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43844/she-walks-in-beauty)
> 
> ["O Wind, if Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?"](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45134/ode-to-the-west-wind)
> 
> ["They fuck you up, your mum and dad."](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48419/this-be-the-verse) which is basically in my opinion THE Ben Solo poem.
> 
> ["In the very temple of Delight, Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine"](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44478/ode-on-melancholy)
> 
> ["And then my heart with pleasure fills and dances with the daffodils."](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45521/i-wandered-lonely-as-a-cloud)
> 
> ["I have measured out my life with coffee spoons."](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/44212/the-love-song-of-j-alfred-prufrock)
> 
> ["this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)"](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/49493/i-carry-your-heart-with-mei-carry-it-in)
> 
> you can also find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/akosmia) and [tumblr](http://kylorensx.tumblr.com) where i'm aimlessly vibing most of the times!!


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